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Thread: About sharpening handsaws

  1. #16
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    Lowell, your link went to a different product (at least for me). Are you referring to the Veritas Saw File Holder?

    78C7EB03-EFE8-4511-B07F-3371B301A4CC.jpeg

  2. #17
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    Quote Originally Posted by Scott Winners View Post
    There is some agitation in another area here to opening a sub forum specific to sharpening. I am far too new to have a valued opinion on the subject, though I am in favor.

    I can generally apply a rule of thirds when I take up a new thing. For joinery, sharpening saws turns out to be easy for me, I suspect I am about average sharpening chisels; I. and I know it when faced with rusty old Bailey planes. When I see a rusty old bailey in the antique shop and know I can get the same thing new from Veritas or LN for only ten times the price, I pretty much buy the new plane.

    When there someday is a sticky about sharpening hand saws, bare minimum, I should be in thread behind Pete Taran, Jim Koepke, Derek Cohen and three other users I don't know the name of yet. After "you " have read the sage advice of those six folks who know what they are doing, here is what I have to add...

    How to tell, in process, that when you are done the saw you are working on is going to be impressively sharp.

    1. Your cat leaves not just your house, but the property and goes next door.
    2. Your dog leaves not just the property but your neighborhood.
    3. Your neighbor's hounds are howling in pain.
    4. Your butthole tingles, a LOT
    5. You can picture every dentist who ever drilled any of your teeth, and you know they were all shysters.

    Frame of reference. Be careful here. I have become a fan of Leonard Lee's 1995 _The Complete Guide to Sharpening- (Taunton). Mr. Lee doesn't have a bunch of youtubes or a blog, but his stuff is sharp. I think what I am seeing is on youtube you can get a thing about 85% as sharp as Mr. Lee does, with 15% of the effort. If you are willing to go 100% effort to get a thing 100% sharp, check your local library. The English guy covers gouges two ways on youtube in something like 4 minutes, nothing wrong with that; but Mr. Lee covers gouges one way in ten pages with 28 illustrations. I do grill 85-15 burgers during the week, but when I get around to brisket on the weekends I invest 110-110.

    The point is they measure opposite. Mr. Lee sharpens a rip saw at 0 degrees and 0 degrees, that is perpendicular to the blade and parallel to the floor. The English guys sharpens a rip saw at 90 degrees relative to the blade with the file parallel to the floor, but their teeth will be shaped the same.

    For a crosscut saw, where the Englishman will do "65 degrees" relative to the blade with the file still parallel to the floor, Mr Lee would call that 25 degrees relative to the blade and want the file also tipped 25 degrees relative to the floor to keep the gullet open for optimal chip removal.

    Besides a now fantastic rip saw, I did an 11 PPI crosscut over the weekend at Canadian 30-30 (60- WTFBBQ in England) that has knocked my socks off. It is as good as or better than a carbide bladed circular saw in well seasoned ash at a compound angle relative to the growth rings.

    I don't yet own the American book with the big A on the front to incorporate that frame of reference.

    I went looking and found another 11 PPI crosscut (warranted superior) in the lower 48 on CL that is shipping my way over the weekend. I will shape it at 45-45 after it is jointed. Mr. Lee described that as about the top end for fast cutting/ frequent resharpening.

    If anyone is "good" at planes and wants to whip some of my Baileys into shape in exchange for having some sharp saws arrive at your shop in a box, please to drop a PM to me.
    Scott; if you read further into Mr. Lee's book (back on page 145) you will also note the following;

    For crosscut saws that are going to be used both in hardwood and softwood, the rake angle of the teeth is negative, varying from 15* for quite an aggressive cut to 30*, which is the standard peg tooth pattern. The 30* angle will give a smoother cut than a 15* rake angle, but will also sacrifice speed and saw dust -clearing ability. When we look at two man crosscut saws and Swede saws later in this chapter, we will deal almost exclusively with the higher negative rake angles because these saws have raker teeth that handle the bulk of sawdust clearing.

    Last edited by Stewie Simpson; 01-31-2019 at 9:59 PM.

  3. #18
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  4. #19
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    Coming back to the well, I have a new problem. I did get the Veritas saw file holder, and read up a bunch.

    I have come up with a scheme for saw marking that is working for me, mostly. I only have one labeled, and the set is not yet labeled on it. In the pics it should say 8-10-12.5-0-

    Eight is the pitch number stamped on the plate. The medallion is Warranted Superior with a keystone shape inside the wording. With clean bifocals I think it is eight points per inch, but it might be eight teeth.

    10 is the rake angle I put on the leading edge of the teeth with a correctly sized file and the Veritas saw file holder.

    12.5 is the horizontal fleam I put on it with the Veritas saw file holder.

    The zero shows there is no tooth slope, no sloped gullet, no vertical fleam on the teeth.

    When I am happy with performance I will ink on the set in thousandths. Right now the saw has 0.005 inches of set and I am not happy.

    Overall this grind is the Bad Axe hybrid grind and I do basically like the grind, especially for re-sawing figured grain. It rips better than any of my crosscut saws can, and crosscuts better than any of my rip saws do, and does better at resawing figured hardwood than any saw I own. But it binds.

    I can't decide if I should put a little more set on it, or take the tote back off to see if I can make the steel more shiny. FWIW the figured beech in the one picture is clamping shut on the blade as the cut deepens.
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  5. #20
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    My saws are not that shiny and they do not bind. Spread some wax on the saw and it will likely still bind if it is due to the set being too light.

    It could also be the set is more on one side than the other. A saw can bind from drifting caused by unequal set.

    Why are there stair nuts on the caliper?

    jtk
    "A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."
    - Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

  6. #21
    Quote Originally Posted by Jim Koepke View Post

    Why are there stair nuts on the caliper?

    jtk
    my guess -- so as to mimic outside calipers, and allow for the checking of plate thickness.

  7. #22
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    But it binds.
    Scott, increase the set.

    Regards from Perth

    Derek

  8. #23
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    I really enjoyed your post. The cat leaving and the dog leaving the neighborhood. Classic.

  9. #24
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    The blade above was heavily waxed, so Jim was pointing at more set, and Derek too, so more set it shall be. Thank you both.

    Joe was correct, thank you Joe, the stair nuts were indeed to make my parallel jaw caliper work like outside calipers. Concept good, but not repeatable. I am trialing a different setup now, when I find something that works repeatably I will post up. One challenge is bridging multiple tooth point tips on opposite sides of the blade.

    Mark Harrell's tooth geometry page is here: http://www.badaxetoolworks.com/Filing.php I have not "stoned a facet onto the tip of each tooth." I can see it in my minds eye, and I am sure it makes a difference. A good difference.

    I stopped at 6 thousandths of set, "006" about 0.15mm. Once I had my cut deep enough into my board I could see it wasn't just pinching like a tuning fork, but actually bowing and cupping off the saw creating a curved kerf for my straight bladed saw to follow.

    So I stuck some shims into the top of the cut to keep the two halves separated and that worked out just fine. I do have a ship point saw in my till waiting for a purpose. It is up around 10-11-12 pitch, I am going to try a similar grind from Leonard Lee's sharpening book for resawing figured hardwood on the ship point.
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  10. #25
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jim Koepke View Post

    It could also be the set is more on one side than the other. A saw can bind from drifting caused by unequal set.


    jtk
    I think I am OK on this. After I read this I tried the saw in some fairly boring grain and it tracked straight. That was about when I noticed the wild grain piece I was struggling with was not just pinching but cupping.

    I do sharpen from both sides of the blade, which I would estimate avoids most of this problem. I can see it would be possible or even likely to take off more metal when pushing the file say right to left towards the toe and maybe taking off a little less when the saw is flipped and filing left to right towards the toe. I strive to make the sounds equally painful when filing in opposite directions.

    Other than saw tracking in straight grain, or drifting in straight grain, is there another way to check for this?

  11. #26
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    Other than saw tracking in straight grain, or drifting in straight grain, is there another way to check for this?
    If while holding the saw with a very light grip it cuts a straight kerf, the set should be fine.

    The real test is repeatability. Mark a half dozen lines off the squared end of a piece of scrap. If each kerf cut follows the line without any operator effort or corrections, life is good.

    If the kerfs drift in both directions, suspect operator error.

    If the drift is pretty much the same on each cut, the side they turn to is the side with a bit more set. Make a couple of passes on this side with an oilstone from handle to toe and test again.

    jtk
    Last edited by Jim Koepke; 03-24-2019 at 5:00 PM. Reason: wording
    "A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."
    - Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

  12. #27
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    Scott, not sure if you’re half joking, but there should be no squealing when you file the saw. It should be a nice, well, metal filing sound. If it’s squealing, you need to lower the saw in the vise. It should be clamped just a wee bit below the gullet. Not only is the sound awful, it’s very hard on the file.

  13. #28
    Scott Bob Smalser's posts are helpful. Here's a link: http://www.woodcentral.com/cgi-bin/articles.pl#smalser

  14. #29
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    Many years ago I bought an antique cast iron saw vise. I cleaned it up, re-painted it and discovered it was warped in the middle. I chose to line the jaws with leather in such a way as to compensate for the warp.
    Once you hold the saw edge properly the noise issue is far less, a few files and it is easy. The few minutes spent sharpening saves far more time in cutting.
    Have to get the right size files for the tooth size and the files don’t last that long but no real excuse for a blunt saw.

    Of all the tools you sharpen saws can be ignored the longest, not so planes or chisels.
    ​You can do a lot with very little! You can do a little more with a lot!

  15. #30
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    Quote Originally Posted by Phil Mueller View Post
    Scott, not sure if you’re half joking, but there should be no squealing when you file the saw. It should be a nice, well, metal filing sound. If it’s squealing, you need to lower the saw in the vise. It should be clamped just a wee bit below the gullet. Not only is the sound awful, it’s very hard on the file.
    Right. Not squealing like a stuck pig or a beginner learning violin. More like fingernails on a blackboard only quieter. I am the guy who can sense locomotive rumble when it is 20 miles away, then again when it is ten miles away, then when it pops over the horizon five miles away I say "see I told you there was a locomotive coming." It is more visceral than audio to me, does that make sense?

    Not a loud sound, but a vibration that reaches through my navel, wraps around my spinal cord and then makes like a paint shaker.

    Our cat really does vacate the shop when I reach for a saw now. She didn't mind cutting wood with a handsaw so much, but I have been sharpening more lately and she pretty much leaves when I reach into the saw till now. With the back door open, I truly can cause discomfort to my neighbor's dogs.

    Sort of like bagpipes can be heard by both the living and the dead...does that make sense?

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